


pull me up so i can breathe with you

by knoxoursavior



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 22:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17610395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knoxoursavior/pseuds/knoxoursavior
Summary: "My hair. You keep playing with it. Do you like it?"





	pull me up so i can breathe with you

**Author's Note:**

> short-haired yue and long-haired eiji just bc :~)

“You like it?”

Yut-lung looks up at Eiji, but he doesn’t move beyond that. He keeps his body pressed against Eiji’s side, one of his legs hooked around Eiji’s thigh. He keeps his hand where it is too, his fingers toying with the ends of Eiji’s hair, splayed so beautifully across his chest, dark against his fair skin.

“Like what?” he asks, even though he already knows the answer. He likes this, though—going through the motions. Maybe before, he’d think of it as pointless, a waste of his time, but Eiji makes him want  _ more _ . His whole life, he’s only been living to get to the next step, has always been crawling his way up and out of another pit; he wanted to get out from under his family’s thumb, to get out of his truce with Golzine, to get out of ordering around people who didn’t want him at the top in the first place, but Eiji—

Eiji makes him want the world to stop, makes him want every passing second to extend until infinity. Eiji makes him want to live for something that isn’t anger or spite or the need to survive and it’s a situation that Yut-lung has never dreamed of, never even imagined being in.

He’d spend all of his life with Eiji if he could, would spend every minute of every day holding him if it didn’t mean that Eiji would get sick of him. And yes, he already knows it’s unhealthy; Sing has told him plenty of times after all.

“My hair. You keep playing with it,” Eiji clarifies, and as if that isn’t enough to make Yut-lung’s cheeks flush, his hand closes around Yut-lung’s, holds on with a loose grip as his thumb brushes back and forth against Yut-lung’s skin in time with the rhythm of Eiji’s touch as they skim the curve of his back. “Do you like it?”

It’s a simple question, requiring only a simple answer, but Yut-lung feels an onslaught of words rushing through him, feels countless paragraphs itching to slide off his tongue.

He stamps down everything else that wants to escape from between his lips, says only, “Yes.”

_ It makes you look beautiful _ , he wants to add, but Eiji has always been beautiful.

_ It makes you look soft _ , he wants to add, but Eiji has always been soft.

Yut-lung remembers his first impression of Eiji, remembers thinking of an unsharpened, untested knife, made of too flimsy a material to do anything but break upon attempting to be plunged into flesh. He remembers looking at Eiji and Ash orbiting around each other and thinking,  _ ah, even demons are kind to the weak. _

And he used to detest that, used to hate the fact that someone like Ash wanted someone like Eiji near him, that Ash would rather hold a worthless, feeble thing in his hands rather than a weapon he can use. 

Yut-lung knows better now. Now, he’s tasted the sweetness of affection, of companionship, of having someone he can lean on, someone he can call at the dead of night so he can feel anything but empty. Now, he’s basked in Eiji’s warmth, has scooped up everything he could in his pale palms until he has enough to remember what it feels like, not being lonely.

“Do you miss your long hair?” Eiji asks.

Yut-lung presses his lips together, actually pauses to think about it because, in some way, he does. He misses the weight of it, misses the cover it provided when he was feeling like his face was too red, too contorted in his anger and all of the other emotions bubbling in the pit of his stomach. He misses looking into the mirror and seeing his mother, but—

Well.

He’s better off without that weight, and he’s better off not hiding. And anyway, there are more things than just his hair to remind him of his mother.

“No,” he says finally, and then, “Do  _ you _ like me with long hair?”

“I like you no matter what,” Eiji answers easily.  _ Too _ easily,  _ so  _ easily that if it were any other person, Yut-lung would be suspicious, would be questioning how genuine it was, but it’s  _ Eiji _ and Eiji hardly ever says anything he doesn’t mean.

Still, Yut-lung lets his lips curl upwards into a teasing smile. He turns his hand in Eiji’s grip, turns it until their fingers are lacing together and Eiji’s other hand stops running up and down Yut-lung’s spine and settles instead on his hip.

“Do you?” he says, but he doesn’t expect to be rewarded with Eiji’s grip tightening around him.

“Well. Maybe I do like this haircut on you a little better,” Eiji admits.

Yut-lung’s eyebrows rise. “Just a little?”

Eiji huffs out a laugh, and fleeting as it may be, the sound of it makes something warm bloom in Yut-lung’s chest.

“A lot, maybe,” he amends. Then, “It makes this a lot easier to do.”

The hand Eiji had on Yut-lung’s hip goes up, up,  _ up _ until it’s curled around the back of his neck, until Eiji only has to push just a little for their lips to meet in a kiss.

Eiji’s lips are warm, just like the rest of his body, and every little thing that Eiji does feels like a declaration. The brush of his lips against Yut-lung’s feels like  _ you’re worthy _ , the swipe of his tongue across Yut-lung’s mouth sounds like  _ you’re beautiful _ , and the gentle pressure of Eiji’s hand on Yut-lung’s neck feels a little bit like  _ I love you _ .

Just a little bit though.

Surely, it isn’t the case, but Yut-lung has been allowing himself to hope more and more these days. Maybe not now, maybe not anytime soon, but  _ someday _ . Yut-lung will hold onto Eiji for as long as he can, and maybe someday, the words will come from Eiji’s mouth instead of the one corner of Yut-lung’s mind bathing in the scraps of Eiji’s light he’s stolen away and kept for himself.

“Ah,” Eiji says, once they’ve finally, unfortunately pulled away from each other. “I definitely like it a lot.”

Yut-lung smiles.

“If you like it that much, then maybe I’ll keep it this way for a while.”

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on [twt](http://twitter.com/singeiji) :~)


End file.
